Sarcastic as his last statement may be, Carlisle answers it in earnest. "No, it wasn't. I mistook it for a person in the dark of one of the stores. It came around the aisle, and I realized I was sorely mistaken."

He draws another line, a horizontal one that juts downward at the edge of the page. "I ran from it, but it caught up to me at the cliffs. For all its legs, it could not swim."